Sorry for short chapters! I remember when these were almost 6,000 words of awesome…*sigh.*
February 3rd - 4th
If anyone on the street saw him he was sure they would scream. Blood poured from Horst's mouth and the flap of skin now hanging from the side of his face where the poker struck him, giving him a certain surreal, walking dead quality.
He kept his arm steady by tucking it into an inside pocket of his blood soaked work jacket. By all accounts he should have been out cold on the fifth floor of Fiskargatan from the vicious strike he'd taken. All he could think about were the two alleyways separating him from the car. If he could get there, he could get out before the street became hot with cops.
His hand nearly ripped the door handle from the car when he crawled into the golden Saab Camilla had stolen. Vaguely he remembered a similar incident involving Niedermann when his idiot older brother tried to question the fearless giant. Niedermann had been leaving and grabbed the door handle to open their father's truck when Jarrod had tried to take a swing at him. The result was a truck that could only be entered through the passenger door and a five-inch long scar across Jarrod's jawline where the metal handle had ripped the flesh from his face.
Horst laughed, more from the overwhelming blood loss than anything else as he gunned the car and drove like a drunk through Mosebacke, passing two cop cars howling through the Söderledstunneln.
An hour after the call for shots fired went out, Bublanski lifted crime scene tape across the front entrance of Fiskargatan nine, careful not to step in the blood trail that led out onto the street. The building had been cleared of its seven tenants, who now stood on the street outside, glaring at his officers.
The amount of blood loss was massive. So much so he didn't think a mere gunshot was the cause of such gore. There may not have been a body call when he was alerted to the crime scene's possible connection to Camilla Salander, but he strongly believed that would change in the coming day.
At the top of the stairs, Holmberg was just stripping off a pair of gloves, carrying only a single evidence bag with a bullet inside. A larger evidence case that was no more than a glorified blue plastic bin sat in the hallway, containing an abnormally large Apple laptop and messenger bag.
"Something interesting?"
Holmberg shook the bag slightly in front of him, "One hollow point round retrieved from inside a kitchen cabinet door. Otherwise the place is clean, crime-wise."
"Crime-wise? What else is there?"
Holmberg threw the bag haphazardly into the bin, "Follow me." He said simply.
"On the coffee table you'll find a first edition draft copy of the latest Millennium. In the master bedroom there's a suit that you'll recognize from CP officer Figuerola's funeral." "And then on the floor of the bathroom you'll see a familiar t-shirt proclaiming 'fuck you you fucking fuck.'"
"Colorful language." Bublanski remarked humorlessly. Even so, the vulgar faded grey t-shirt did seem very familiar.
"Lisbeth Salander."
Both Holmberg and Bublanski turned to see Modig walking into the immense apartment, her face red with the effort of running up five flights of stairs.
"Sonja? Where've you been all this time?"
"I was following the blood trail from here all the way down to Hotel Söder where it just disappeared. The guy must be as big as a bull if he could run as far as Kapellgränd."
"Did you get Annika Giannini's statement as I asked?"
"Yes. She was returning Salander's laptop when a man shot her just as the elevator doors opened. The laptop bag stopped the bullet, but she'll have a good bruise. Then as soon as the shooter fired, Salander came flying out of the apartment like a bat out of hell and struck him in the face with a fire poker."
Holmberg looked skeptical. "I haven't found any fire poker at all or spatter consistent with being struck with such an object."
"It's what she said happened," Modig shrugged, glaring at Holmberg in a way that did not hide her obvious offense at his words, "And if it was Lisbeth Salander swinging it I wouldn't doubt its effectiveness, either."
"Hey! Stop squabbling and find the poker or any other bloody object that could be used as a weapon. This building has a lower level for tenant parking. Check it."
Modig and Holmberg looked at him as if he'd grown two heads before eyeing each other.
Holmberg shifted on his feet, obviously embarrassed at his slip in thought. "I'll go check the bottom floor, then."
"Salander owns a burgundy Honda. See if you can find it." Bublanski called after him. Modig made a move to follow Holmberg out of the apartment, but Bublanski's hand on her shoulder halted her in her steps. "Wait."
"If Giannini was returning the laptop then she knew Salander lived here. What's an unemployed twenty-seven year old and a journalist whose expertise is financial crime doing in an apartment worth at least twenty million kroner?"
"Do you want to talk to Blomkvist while I handle the Super?"
"No," Bublanski said decisively, "Blomkvist has never willingly been forthcoming with me. Go down to St. Gorans and see if Salander has contacted him."
"Call the Super in off the street on your way out."
Now boarding at gate 17 Norwegian Air flight 4221 to Malaga, Spain. Thank you.
The sound of the intercom was a faint buzz in her ear as she sprawled across a bench besides a closed Duty Free shop. At five forty-six on a Friday morning, she had been lying low in the international terminal of Stockholm-Arlanda for nearly twelve hours.
She had been far from bored.
After she'd disposed of her car in the long-term parking she hopped on the back of a personnel cart, bound for the international terminal. The last flight to southern Spain had left the hour before; the next flight wouldn't be until the six the next morning. The ticket cost a little over three thousand krona and was a five-hour direct flight.
She wandered the terminal for an hour until she settled on a crowded coffee bar that offered a satisfactory Wi-Fi connection for her phone. Her first plan of action was to send purge instructions to her laptop in the event that the police cracked into it. She doubted they would get past her numerous, but it was a necessary precaution.
Hopefully Annika managed to hide the more damning contents of her office from the sweepers in the vents like she had specified. If not, her undeclared residence would be the least of her worries.
For three hours she sat in an armchair that gave her a clear view of the shop's entrance and the television bolted into the opposite corner. A police report was released shortly after seven thirty, describing a tall white male breaking into a luxury penthouse in Mosebacke and shooting a woman before being wounded and fleeing. No names were being released.
Lisbeth wasn't worried. Stockholm still knew her as a black haired, heavily pierced woman dressed in leather. No one would suspect an auburn haired woman dressed in a black pea coat and jeans just tapping away on an iPhone in the corner, even though her Doc Martins were still mandatory apparel.
At closing she was ushered out of the café and into the main terminal. Those on overnight lay overs were already setting up for the night, so she picked a bench removed from the majority of the sleeping horde and drew her fringed hood over her head. She was restless, but could at least act the part of a sleeping traveler while discreetly going scanning her usual tabs. Nothing of significance piqued her interest as she scanned through the Republic's forum. Only Dakota and SixofOne were in the chat, going on a second hour of arguing the hang-ups of access control lists on government databases.
Last call for Norwegian Air flight 4221 to Malaga, Spain. Last call.
Time to go.
The flight was only half full and she took the rare opportunity to grab an entire window row to herself. It was only until the three G's of pressure glued her back in her seat did she truly feel home free.
About half an hour after the evening shift nurse had come and gone to take his vitals and deliver the evening meal, Blomkvist was sitting upright in bed, watching the evening news. Three days later, the bombing at Millennium was still being widely covered.
Just after Lisbeth had left with his sister, Lotta stopped in with news on the rest of the Millennium staff. The news was good for the most part. Christer had his dressings removed and could see some shapes. Malin's cuts were beginning to heal over well. She also remarked that she not seen or heard from Berger in three days, but didn't dwell on it.
When Blomkvist asked about Cortez, her face immediately fell. Earlier that morning, his leg was amputated seven inches above the knee. Cortez, the journalist who had run three marathons in three days just last fall and was an avid soccer player, was now without one of the most vital tools to fuel his passions outside of Millennium. The thought destroyed him.
A rerun of the previous night's Melodifestivalen came on at the conclusion of the news.
"Sonja?"
"Mikael," She came in and stood at the foot of his hospital bed, the light of his bedside lamp not quite reaching her, "There was a shooting in Mosebacke."
At the mention of Mosebacke he grasped for the bed controls, bringing himself to rest fully upright. Annika was going to drop Lisbeth off. "What happened?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out. May I sit?"
He nodded, motioning with his good arm to the chair beside the bed. The couch where Lisbeth had spent the last two nights remained woefully empty as fear firmly settled in his gut. Could Camilla have finally gotten to Lisbeth? No…it didn't fit her methods. None of her attacks had been with guns. They were always with something strange, something she could show off with. Something-
"There was a call to police about the sound of a gunshot in an apartment building. When a team arrived eight minutes later they found a trail of blood leading up the stairs to the top floor penthouse, a bloody fire poker, a laptop bag with a bullet hole in it, and your sister. She'd used the bag to shield herself from her attacker."
Blomkvist suddenly let go of the breath he'd unknowingly been holding. Annika was fine and had been indirectly saved by Lisbeth.
Modig looked at him and leaned in towards, her arms resting on her knees. She was close enough that Blomkvist could see that she'd probably been working almost nonstop since the first bombing on New Years. Five weeks ago. It felt like a lifetime away.
She spoke in a faint whisper, as if the room had been bugged, "Do you know where Lisbeth Salander is?"
How many times had he been asked that question? It was becoming irritating. He wished he knew where she was a quarter of the time. He wasn't her guardian; she didn't have to check in with him everyday with a detailed list of her plans; she was a free citizen of Sweden, for Christ's sake!
In the end he shook his head. "Her business is her own."
"That's right. But she's needed for questioning. It was her who struck whoever had shot at your sister with a fire poker and it was almost certainly her who was initially fired upon in the apartment. I don't like what's going on and neither does Inspector Bublanski."
"With all respect Sonja, no one likes what's going on," he felt his anger beginning to rise, "My arm is useless. Henry's leg has been amputated. Six people are dead. You'd have to be an extremely sadist fuck to enjoy what's going on."
"And a lot more people could wind up in similar straights." She said, her tone beginning to match his, "What do you two know that we don't? What aren't you telling?"
"The extent of my knowledge has already been printed and published. Lisbeth's view is her own and I am unfortunately not privileged enough to know." And she sure as hell isn't going to trust any of you to clean up the mess.
Modig looked less than thrilled, but knew she was at the point where nothing she said would change his mind. There was something there, just under the surface and out of reach that she wasn't being told, but for the time being she would let it go. "I understand."
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